1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems of electromagnetic or electromechanical stimulation of acoustic musical instruments for the purpose of high fidelity production or reproduction of music.
2. Background Art
Acoustic instruments (i.e., non-electrical instruments) are the instruments of choice for performing most musical pieces. Acoustic instruments typically excite a moveable element near an air chamber to produce sounds. For example, in a violin, guitar or piano, strings are manipulated, excited and amplified by a sound chamber to produce sound; in a clarinet, oboe or saxophone, a reed is excited like a valve, and regulates a moving column of air down the bore of the instrument to produce sounds; in drums, a tightly-stretched membrane is excited and amplified by the drum body to produce sounds.
In the creation of recorded music, it is often desired to utilize acoustic instruments as part of the recorded performance. However, this often limits the repeatability of performances for recording and limits the venues where recording sessions can take place. For example, since acoustic instruments are recorded through the air, the acoustics of the recording locations are critical. This often prevents the use of a live acoustic performer when the recording is to be done at a small studio or a home environment. Further, if a large number of acoustic instruments are desired, the expense and logistics of supporting a large number of live performers is typically prohibitive. One prior art attempt to solve the problem of providing acoustic sounds for recording purposes is to substitute electronically-produced sounds such as from a synthesizer, sampler or the like. While such efforts can provide solutions to the problem of repeatability of performance, venues of recording sessions and expense, these prior art attempts do not provide satisfactory solutions to the problems of sound fidelity and authenticity. Synthesizers do not recreate strings or other acoustic instruments effectively, sounding artificial and lacking the richness and variety of live performers. High fidelity sampling techniques are expensive in terms of dollars and memory requirements, and also fall short of the real thing in terms of flexibility and acoustic authenticity.
There are methods in existence between the extremes of reproduction and live performance. The player piano, for example, is a device which can reproduce music on a real piano without the need for a human pianist. The player piano affords a composer with the convenience of storage and playback capability. Obviously though, the sounds producible by a piano cannot encompass other instruments such as strings or winds. Prior art player pianos are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,843,936; 4,756,223; 4,744,281; 4,593,592; 4,469,000; 4,417,494 and 4,383,464.
Attempts have been made to record and reproduce a player piano musical performance synchronized with an orchestral recording. This complex mechanical reproduction, while a faithful reproduction of a piano, makes no attempt to faithfully reproduce other instrument groups, relying on the traditional loudspeaker for that purpose.
Presently, music is performed either acoustically or electronically or in combination, recorded through an electronic mixing board onto digital or sound tape and replayed electromagnetically through fiber speaker cones. Rarely, music is performed on a player piano, performance data being stored digitally, then replayed by a player piano mechanically reproducing the piano's real sound. In the case of electronic recordings, fidelity is lost during each step of the process. Even during the initial performance of the acoustic instruments, noise and distortion are introduced. Using the player piano method, an acoustic performance is reproduced mechanically with hammers and pedals, but only a piano is reproduced, mechanical delay is introduced and flexibility is lacking.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for electronically producing and reproducing the sounds of both individual and groups of acoustic and acoustic hybrid instruments.
It is another object of the present invention to provide means for electronically and mechanically stimulating musical instruments in an electronically controlled and repeatable manner.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for stimulating a plurality of acoustic instruments from a single system.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for stimulating acoustic instruments such that a "live" performance can be generated in a repeatable and controllable manner.
It is another object of this invention to provide a computer-controlled music creation system for acoustic musical instruments to create and store performances and recordings.
It is another object of this invention to provide computer control of acoustic musical instruments.
It is another object of this invention to provide computer control of electromagnetically-stimulated transducers.
It is still another object of this invention to provide piano-like keyboard or any other method of control of acoustic and acoustic hybrid instruments.
It is still another object of this invention to provide storage and editing control of an acoustic or acoustic hybrid music performance.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method of reproducing a live acoustic musical performance.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method of extracting performance information from a live or prerecorded musical performance with an automatic pitch/frequency detection/analyzation device for use, storage and editing in an instrument transducer controlling CPU.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of synchronizing a performance of controlled acoustic instruments with a video image.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for eliminating mechanical delay from CPU-controlled acoustic musical instruments.